Category Archives: Patch Notes

[Update 2/23/2010: Just my luck, right after I posted this there was an update. All updated information since my initial post, as well as comments will be colored blue to show they are updates.][Update 3/2/2010: We have another revision. Updated information for this one will show in Orange.][Updates 3/9 and 3/11: More revisions continue to come. Rather than tying them into the whole patch notes below, I am going to start adding revised updates to the top of the info.]

No, that picture doesn’t really have anything at all to do with this post here (well, he has three claws, and it’s Patch 3.3.3, so maybe that’s something), it’s just a nod to a special friend. He knows who he is, and he knows what it’s for.

Moving right along, it’s time to discuss the latest and greatest patch coming up: Patch 3.3.3

You can find all of the non-PvP patch notes as of this post’s publish date here in this post. I will have the PvP patch notes listed on my Fiery Weapons blog if you would like to know about the upcoming changes on those.

The information in blockquotes are the patch notes themselves, where text outside of the quotes will have any comments I wish to share on the section above, or perhaps below.

[Update 3/11/2010]HunterTalentsPet TalentsHeart of the Phoenix: Cooldown reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.

WarriorThunderclap: This ability now counts as a ranged attack, granting it double damage on critical strikes instead of 150% and ranged miss chance, and still cannot be dodged or parried.

TalentsArmsBladestorm: Warriors can now be Disarmed while under the effects of this ability.

GlyphsDruidGlyph of Focus: Now increases the damage done by Starfall by 10%, down from 20%.

Nothing wrong with being able to bring your pet back to life sooner, so grats to the hunters that take HotP for their pets.

The Warrior T-Clap change seems like a buff to me, but with my lack of Warrior knowledge it could be a backdoor nerf as well. Bladestorm allowing you to be Disarmed in the middle of it certainly seems like a PvP nerf to me, but again I know little about Warriors so maybe there’s another reason. I sort of doubt it for this one though.

Reducing the Starfall damage for Druids is a bit odd to me. From talking to Balance druids I know, they weren’t too impressed with the 20% buff to begin with, so I don’t think that reducing it is going to do anything. I guess Starfall became overpowered in trash pulls or something, I really don’t know. I want to level a Balance Druid, but I haven’t gotten around to getting one over level 38 yet.

Clarified: PvP Honor Changes
The amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill has been increased by 100% for characters of all levels. This change will effectively double the amount of Honor received from Honorable Kills, or for completing Battleground and Wintergrasp objectives; however, the amount of experience gained from completing Battleground objectives and the amount of Honor rewarded for completing each Wintergrasp quest remain unchanged.

Dungeons and Raids

The Culling of Stratholme
Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once.

I absolutely love this change. This thing was such a horrible waste of time, I can’t wait for this change in particular to come to pass. My inner lore nerd loved it the first time, but seriously, once was (more than) enough.

Classes: General

Several raid buffs have had their ranges increased to 100 yards, up from 45 yards, to prevent select buffs from repeatedly getting applied and removed during highly mobile encounters. Some buffs, such as paladin auras, totems, shouts and Blood Pact are intentionally meant to have shorter ranges and remain unchanged.

Umm…yay? Maybe my lack of 25-man raiding leaves me behind on this one. Extra range is good, I just don’t know how much it really matters.

Death KnightsChains of Ice: The ability now innately applies Frost Fever to a target.Icy Touch: This ability now causes a very high amount of threat while the death knight is in Frost Presence.Rune of Razorice: Now stacks 5 stacks of 2% Frost Vulnerability instead of 10 stacks of 1% Frost
Vulnerability. Proc chance changed to 100%.

TalentsBloodAbomination’s Might: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc on certain strikes. Rank 1 is 5% attack power and Rank 2 is 10% attack power. The self strength buff remains unchanged.Will of the Necropolis: There is no longer a cooldown on the frequency at which this talent can be activated. In addition, this ability can now also be triggered by damage which deals less than 5% of your health.

FrostEndless Winter: No longer causes Frost Fever to be applied by Chains of Ice, but instead grants 2/4% strength. The previous functionality of this talent can now be attained via the Glyph of Chains of Ice.Improved Icy Talons: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc. The self haste buff remains unchanged.Nerves of Cold Steel: Now increases off-hand damage by 8/16/25%, up from 5/10/15%.Unbreakable Armor: The amount of strength granted is now 20%, up from 10%.

UnholyScourge Strike: Now deals 70% weapon damage, plus 12% of physical damage done as shadow damage for each of the death knight’s diseases on the target. The net result should be larger strikes with no diseases present, while maximum damage with all diseases applied to the target should stay the same.

If you have taken a look at my recent posts on Death Knights, you will know that I have some interest in this class now where before I would not have even bothered looking at this section.

I have no familiarity with Blood, but the changes seem to be buffs rather than nerfs, so I think Blood Knights will enjoy those to some extent at least.

I like all of the changes to Frost here. Endless Winter now has some potential for my Frost Tank since I have no use for Chains of Ice outside of PvP, but can always use more Strength. ICT being a passive buff is good news as I’ve considered adding it to my spec here recently. I haven’t delved into NoCS yet since I’m just now getting into the dual wielding side of the class, but I will gladly take an increase in my damage. And the buff to Unbreakable Armor sounds great since Strength contributes to one of our primary forms of defense.

DruidsNature’s Grasp: Now has 3 charges, up from 1.

Talents

BalanceStarfall: The damage done by this spell has been significantly increased.Typhoon: Mana cost reduced to 25%, down from 32%.

Feral CombatMangle: The debuff from this talent now lasts 60 seconds, up from 12 seconds.

I must say that I LOVE the change to Nature’s Grasp. I’m loving it for PvP and I’m loving it for PvE.

I haven’t played around much with Starfall, but “significantly increased” sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

And reducing the mana cost of Typhoon sounds like a step in the right direction, though it doesn’t solve the low DPS my guildie Boomkins have mentioned lately. I haven’t got a boomkin up high enough to comment from experience, but more mana is more mana, and that’s always a good thing.

My experience with Feral doesn’t go far enough to comment on this one from experience, but I do know that this is one of the key abilities used by feral tanks in particular, so I would imagine a 500% increase in debuff uptime would be a welcome addition.

Hunters

Talents

Beast MasteryFerocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%.

Switching buffs like this to an aura seems like an excellent change to me. It’s one more thing helping to establish what a particular class/spec has to offer a raiding environment, that does not require luck with the dice. I’m pretty new to the hunter scene, so that’s about all I can say about this one right now.

I’m still fairly new to the Hunter (so new that I haven’t seen Steady Shot yet), so I’m not sure just how good this buff is. I do know from reading hunter blogs though that this one is mentioned a lot, so I’ll assume this is a pretty big deal.

MagesFrostbolt: Spell power scaling on this spell has been increased by approximately 5%.

Talents

ArcaneArcane Empowerment: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc off of critical strikes. The self damage buff remains unchanged.Incanter’s Absorption: This talent now only grants additional spell power when damage is absorbed by Mana Shield, Frost Ward, Fire Ward, or Ice Barrier. The limit of 5% of the mage’s health on the spell power buff has been removed.

FireBurning Soul: Threat reduction is now 10/20%, up from 5/10%.Combustion: The cooldown on this spell is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.Empowered Fire: This talent now also applies to Pyroblast damage.Torment the Weak: This talent now also applies to Pyroblast damage.

FrostBrain Freeze: This talent now allows your next Fireball or Frostfire Bolt to be instant and cost no mana. There is a small internal cooldown to keep the Frostfire Bolt from immediately triggering Brain Freeze again.

Increased damage from Frostbolt is something that Frost has needed for a long time. With all of the recent buffs to Frost I’m more than half tempted to hit that up as my dual spec and actually give it a shot.

Arcane gets a nice buff with the passive aura thing that we’re seeing in other classes, which is nice. Incanter’s Absorption is still sort of up in the air. It has had its uses in certain fights up to this point, but I’m not sure what this is going to do to it. I don’t use it myself, so not much from me on this one, but we’ll see where it goes.

Fire is a hard hitting spec, so more threat reduction is always welcome. Reducing the cooldown of one of Fire’s primary buffs is a tasty little buff as well. I was always hesitant to use this one when it wasn’t necessary for the sake of saving it, so maybe an extra minute off the cooldown will make it more widely used.

Pyroblast has been one of my favorite spells for a very long time. Seeing this one get buffed makes my little inner pyromancer squee with maniacal glee.

I love the fact that Brain Freeze is now going to allow Frostfire Bolt as well. I’ve always wanted to at least try to make use of it in a Frost build, and this makes it much more viable than previous Frost-based FFB builds.

Priests

Talents

DisciplineRenewed Hope: now has a 60-second duration, up from 20 seconds, but a 20-second cooldown.

I’m not a priest, so I don’t have much to say on this one. Longer durations are good, longer cooldowns can be bad. I assume it’s good? /FailAtPriests

Rogues

Rupture: The damage-over-time component of this ability can now produce critical strikes.

Talents

SubtletyFilthy Tricks: Now Reduces the cooldown by 5/10 seconds and energy cost by 5/10 of Tricks of the Trade, Distract and Shadowstep abilities, and reduces the cooldown of Preparation by 1.5/3 minutes.Ghostly Strike: If the rogue has a dagger equipped, this ability now deals 180% weapon damage instead of 125%.Hemorrhage: If the rogue has a dagger equipped, this ability now deals 160% weapon damage instead of 110%.Serrated Blades: This talent now allows the rogue to ignore up to 3/6/9% of the target’s armor, rather than a fixed amount of armor ignored per level of the rogue.Slaughter from the Shadows: Now adds 1/2/3/4/5% damage to all attacks in addition to its current effects.Waylay: The debuff from this talent can now be caused by Backstab in addition to Ambush.

Allowing Rupture to crit is going to appeal to a lot of rogues out there. I have played around with rogues quite a bit, but I haven’t gotten all that high in level, so some of these I’m not too familiar with. However, I do know from playing a Sub Rogue that these changes look great to me. I know Sub has been sort of slacking here for a while, so increased damage and being able to use a debuff at any time rather than only when stealthed looks like a big step in the right direction.

Shaman

Flame Shock: The damage-over-time component of this ability can now produce critical strikes and is affected by spell haste.

Talents

Elemental CombatElemental Oath: This ability is now always on as a passive aura.

EnhancementUnleashed Rage: This ability is now always on as a passive aura.

Allowing Flame Shock to crit when it tics makes my many Shamans smile. I know from raiding with my wife’s Enhancement Shaman that she’s often disappointed with her DPS in comparison to others in the raid with lower gear scores. I don’t know that these changes are going to completely fix that, but it will be a step in the right direction at least.

Elemental Oath and Unleashed Rage both becoming passive auras rather than procs is great. It was never extremely hard getting the buffs up and keeping them there, but wasted downtime is wasted downtime no matter how you look at it. Fixing that looks like a great way to improve on one of the Shaman’s core traits of buffing their groups.

Warlocks

Immolate: The damage-over-time component of this spell can now produce critical strikes.Life Tap: This spell no longer scales with spirit, and instead scales with spell power.

Talents

Affliction

Dark Pact: This ability no longer requires line-of-sight with the summoned demon, and the range has been increased from 30 yards to 100 yards.

DemonologyDemonic Pact: This effect now has a 45-second duration, up from 12 seconds, and a 20-second internal cooldown.

I have always played a Warlock as either Affliction or Demonology, both of which don’t bother with Immolate after lower levels. I would imagine Destruction locks would get more use out of it while leveling, before they switch to other spells (just guessing here), but at the least it will help you clear through all of those mobs while you’re working through your lower levels.

I really like the change to Dark Pact from a leveling perspective. So many times my stupid demon ends up stealing agro and hiding behind a wall or something while I’m drain tanking half the map. Life Tap isn’t always the best option when you’re below level 60, and that’s where Dark Pact needs to come in and fill in that gap. Better range and removing LoS sound like a world of good to me.

I’ll have to leave the change to Life Tap up to another, more skilled Warlock. Scaling with SP rather than Spirit seems like a lot of potential for strong tapping, the question is just how much?

Warriors

Revenge: Damage done by this ability (base and scaling) increased by 50%.

Talents

ArmsTrauma: The debuff from this talent now lasts 60 seconds, up from 15 seconds.

FuryRampage: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc from critical strikes.

ProtectionVitality: Now boosts Stamina by 3/6/9%, up from 2/4/6%. Strength and expertise benefits have not changed.Improved Revenge: This talent can no longer trigger a stun, and instead causes Revenge to strike an additional target for 50/100% of Revenge’s damage.

The Warrior is another class I’m not too familiar with simply because I find them boring beyond belief. Increased damage on Revenge is nice for those that use it, and Rampage being made a passive aura like those of other classes is of course a good thing since you’re no longer having to rely on crits to proc the buff.

As for Vitality, every Tank loves to have more stamina, and this looks like a wonderful way for them to get it. It’s interesting to see DKs and Warriors both getting health buffs while Paladins get a nerf. It’s something I haven’t seen a reasonably explanation of just yet in my experience.

Items

Frozo the Renowned has moved into the Dalaran Magus Commerce Exchange and will be trading your Frozen Orb for various other trade goods.

Glyphs

Death KnightsGlyph of Disease: When this glyph causes Frost Fever to be refreshed, it will now also trigger a refresh of Icy Talons.

DruidsGlyph of Mangle: This glyph now provides 10% increased damage done by Mangle instead of increasing the duration of the debuff.

MagesGlyph of Fireball: No longer increases critical strike chance of Fireball. Instead, it now reduces the cast time of Fireball by 0.15 seconds.

Mechanostriders: Summoning any of these mounts is now perfectly mechanical-sounding!

Priest Tier-10 4-Piece Healing Set Bonus: Redesigned. This bonus now increases the effectiveness of the caster’s Power Word: Shield and Renew spells by 5%.

Shaman Tier-10 4-Piece Elemental set Bonus: This bonus has been slightly adjusted to account for the fact that haste now modifies Flame Shock’s periodic damage ticks. The bonus now makes the shaman’s Lava Burst cause Flame Shock to tick at least two additional times before expiring.

I think Frozo is a great idea. Running random heroics over and over as I did on my Mage, I found quite a supply of Frozen Orbs and nothing at all to do with them. Sure they are used for crafting certain items, but there’s only so many of those that anyone needs and then they just stack up or you sell them on the AH for a fairly cheap price given the large supply that’s available right now.

The DK glyph will be good for some, not so much for others. I don’t see any need for it on my Frost Tank, but others might enjoy it. Since I’ve only recently joined the DK Fanclub after being a leader of the DK’s Suck Club, I don’t have a lot to contribute on that one.

Since Druids have been using Mangle in its current form for a while, I expect that this glyph might become a pretty hot item. Increased duration is all fine and good, but when you’re already used to the duration I would expect an increase in damage output to be the more attractive of the two options.

The Mage glyph is a bit odd to me. Maybe I just haven’t played Fire in so long that I don’t fully understand it’s purpose? Reducing the casting time by 0.15 seconds seems a bit odd since the vast majority of time-reducing glyphs do so in increments of 0.1 seconds. I’ll leave it to the Fire Mages out there to put a value on this one, but from my previous experience with Fire I’d say this one isn’t worth my time.

Professions

Runed Orb: Recipes which require this item have had their material requirements significantly reduced.

Engineering
The Pet Bombling and Lil’ Smoky non-combat pets are no longer Bind-on-Pickup.

Fishing
The “Monsterbelly Appetite” daily fishing quest has changed so it now takes place outside the The Violet Hold in Dalaran. The quest still requires a Severed Arm and has been renamed to “Disarmed!”

Inscription
Most recipes that required 2 inks now only require 1.

MiningTitansteel Bar: Creating this item no longer results in a cooldown.

TailoringGlacial Bag: Creating this item now invokes a 7-day cooldown.

The cooldown and location requirements have been removed from creating Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave.

Reducing material requirements is always good for the crafter from a leveling and personal money making standpoint, though it may reduce the income from selling that service to others. I personally see it as a good thing, but we’ll see on that one.

I’m sort of saddened by the engineering pets no longer being BoP, but it doesn’t say that they can be used by non-engineers, so I’m wondering if this is just a way to give other engineers easier access to the pets, or if they’re really taking away another one of the things that makes us so special.

I hate fishing, and this change isn’t going to do anything to change that for me. For those of you who do like fishing though, I hear this is a pretty big change in the right direction as it was pretty annoying and out of the way in the past.

Inscriptionists (I don’t give a crap what you want to call them, I took the profession the day it was released and was one of the first to get it to 450 on my server so I’ll call myself what I want) will like not having to burn through quite so many herbs to get their crafting done, especially during the leveling process. I think in the long run the biggest change is going to be even more people trying to take over the glyph market on the AH. I’d like to say it’s good, but I think we will have to wait and see the actual results on this one.

I love the fact that the Titansteel cooldown is going away so that I don’t have to keep all those mats sitting in my bank so that I can use them once a day. The downside is that there will be no more selling of your titansteel cooldowns, but the upside is that you won’t have to buy them. Since I haven’t sold a cooldown in weeks, I can’t say that the downside really bothers me much in the least.

Removing the cooldown from Tailoring cloths is equally is cool as it was for the Titansteel, with the same benefits and drawbacks to go with it. I know back when I actually had a tailor I would have loved this, though now I’m not sure how much I would care. The massive cooldown on the bags is sort of boring to me. If people want full 22 slots, then they’ll go buy full 22 slots. I don’t see that the cooldown on the bag is necessary, but it’s not one that I care about either way since 2 extra slots means nothing to me and I’m not a tailor.

Quests

Many quests which require vehicles have had their vehicle mechanics updated and improved in the interest of fun.

I know my wife absolutely hates vehicles, particularly those that involve flying. This might get her and people like her to enjoy them a bit more; but with so little detail who’s to say? I already like them myself, so if they’re more fun then by all means, proceed Blizz.

User Interface
All Alert pop-ups now have new and fresh Alert icons.

New and fresh icons….yippy?

Auction House
If the Auction House on a realm is unavailable for any reason, an alert will pop up informing players who attempt to access it.

Players can now Right-Click to place an item in the Auction frame.

Entire stacks of a specific item type can be placed in the Auction frame and several options have been added for choosing how to list auctions.

Stack Size: If a stack of items has been added to the Auction frame, players can select the size of the stack they wish to sell. If an invalid stack size is entered (i.e. a stack of 21 Saronite Ore), the Create Auction button will be grayed out.

Number of Stacks: In addition to selecting the size of a stack, players can select how many stacks of an item they wish to sell (i.e. if a player has a total of 43 Saronite Ore in the Auction frame, they can choose to list 2 stacks of 20, 4 stacks of 10, 8 stacks of 5, 43 stacks of 1, etc. If the number and amount of stacks listed results in a remainder, the left-over items will be placed back in the player’s bags automatically).

Stack Size and Number of Stacks are linked mathematically so that altering the variables of one may automatically calculate the amount of the other (i.e. if a player puts 20 in the Stack Size field and 43 Saronite Ore are in the Auction frame, the Number of Stacks field will change to 2 by default. If a player only wishes to sell one stack of 20 Saronite Ore, the Number of Stacks field can be manually changed to 1).

Price: Players can now choose to input the price of an item Per Stack or Per Item by selecting either option from a pull-down. If Per Item is selected and a player is selling a stack of that item, the Auction House will multiply the selected Per Item price by the amount of that item in the stack. If Per Stack is selected, the player can enter the total price he or she wishes to charge for each stack of that item being listed.

Auction Post Completion Bar: If multiple items or stacks of items are being listed at once by a player, a Posting completion bar will appear showing the total progress of each individual auction being listed once the Create Auction button is selected. The greater the number of individual listings being made in a single press of the Create Auction button, the longer this process will take. Players can still browse the Auction House while the Posting completion bar is in progress, but moving around will interrupt the progress, similar to moving while attempting to create multiple bandages with First Aid. Just as with creating bandages, auctions that were completed prior to the character moving or otherwise canceling the actions will successfully be listed.

Knowing that the AH is down is good I suppose. If I have trouble accessing it I just leave, personally. But I guess getting a notification will save me a bit of time. /shrug

Most of the other changes are simply making the default Auction interface work like most of the auction addons right now. They all sound good to me, but I don’t think they do enough to make me give up my addons. They are moving in the right direction though, so props to Blizzard for the sake of progress if nothing else.

The Auction Post Completion Bar isn’t bad I suppose, I know from setting up Auctions last night that this feature is already built into the latest version of Auctioneer as it threw me off at first as to what in the world was going on. Not bad, I guess, but not great either.

Dungeon Finder
The Deserter debuff given to players who leave a dungeon prematurely when queuing via the Random Dungeon option has been increased to 30 minutes, up from 15 minutes. The cooldown for using the Random Dungeon option remains 15 minutes.

The Random Dungeon cooldown is no longer displayed as a debuff. Instead, players will see the cooldown time remaining displayed in the Dungeon Finder window when Random Dungeon or Random Heroic Dungeon is selected from the pull-down.

If a player in your party has the Deserter debuff, or is on cooldown from the Random Dungeon option, his or her character name will be displayed in the Dungeon Finder window listed as “On Cooldown,” preventing the group from queuing.

Anyone in a dungeon party can now re-queue their group for a dungeon, as players will still be prompted whether or not to accept their chosen role.

People who drop group for stupid reasons, or no reason at all, really bug me, so doubling the timer is a great idea in my opinion. (Not that I think it will solve the problem in any way.)

Allowing anybody in the group to re-queue is a cool idea. I’ve had a few groups now where the group leader dropped group or got kicked, and then the person who got leadership after them wasn’t aware of it and didn’t requeue us. Most of the reasons why it would be needed are sort of negated by the times that it would become useful, so who knows on this one. I like the sound of it, though.

The other parts mentioned here aren’t a big deal to me.

Players who use the Vote Kick option will now be prompted to provide a reason for kicking a party member. This reason will be presented to everyone in the party except for the person voted to be kicked.

When joining as a group, more generous level requirements will be used instead of Random Dungeon level requirements so that players of different levels joining together will be eligible for a greater number of dungeons.

World Event Bosses
Holiday bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder.

Players must use the Dungeon Finder or speak to special holiday NPCs in the world to queue up and access these bosses.

Upon accepting a queue for any holiday boss, the party will be ported directly to the necessary area for confronting that boss.

The previous summoning criteria for these bosses have been removed. Players can queue up for and fight each World Event boss as many times as they want for any standard loot that they may drop.

All rare holiday items (such as The Horseman’s Reins) will have a chance of being found in holiday-themed loot troves which will drop once for each player in the party no more than once per day, in the same manner that doing the Random Dungeon daily quest will provide a specific reward the first time it is completed in a day.

Parties randomly created via the Dungeon Finder will always be arranged in the party interface from top to bottom in the following order: tank, healer, damage, damage, damage.

If a random party is created via the Dungeon Finder and a player cannot roll Need on an item, a reason will now be provided.

I like the reason why being added to the Vote Kick option. So many people see something pop up and just immediately click ok, and it’s lead to more than one group completely falling apart because someone was just being a dick. It might help, it might not, but I’m staying optimistic on this one for now.

I really like the change to level requirements when joining as a group. I have a lot of guildies that are just far enough ahead of me, or behind me, that we can’t queue together for much of anything, so I like the sound of this one.

Being able to queue for world events is a great idea, grats to Blizz on that one for sure. The updated info on the world bosses makes this one even better. While I’m still not going to bother with holiday achievements and such in general, I’m definitely going to go kill those bosses now.

The other changes are nice, but not especially deserving of comments. I will say though that I love that I won’t have to answer the question of “why can’t I roll need on the gloves?” ~ “Because you’re a freaking Warrior! You don’t need cloth gloves with spellpower on them!” (I should have SS that one and sent it to Gevlon.)

Authenticator Frame: If a player has a Battle.net Authenticator attached to his or her account and selects Remember Account Name at the login screen, the next time that player logs into World of Warcraft, a field to input the Authenticator code will be displayed below the password field.

The World Map will now provide an option to display different levels of a multi-layered dungeon, zone, or city (i.e. players can view the map of the Dalaran Sewers without having to be in that location).

The Authenticator Frame is nice for those of us that have them, making it a bit less bother to use them.

The map option is nice, I know I’ve wanted to use it a time or two myself so it could be pretty cool. I’d really like to see Blizzard step it up and give us maps to old world dungeons like they have with the ones in Wrath. That’s what I’m waiting on, Blizz. Hook me up!

The short description for a tracked quest is now displayed on the Map in the quest pane.

Quest items in a player’s inventory which begin quests now each have an exclamation point overlaid on their icons to make them more easily identifiable.

If a players selects Track Low Level Quests, the quest objectives will no longer appear dim on the Map, nor will the exclamation points appear dim over NPC heads or on the Mini-Map.

Objectives Frame
The Objectives Frame will now list the number of quests displayed at the top. In addition, players can now click on the word “Objectives” at the top of the Objectives Frame for a list of sorting and filtering options which will determine how quests are ordered. Any quests or achievements filtered or sorted out of the Objectives Frame are still being tracked and are simply hidden in this frame.

Sorting
Sort by most difficult quests.
Sort by least difficult quests.
Sort by quests closest in proximity to the player (this will automatically update as players travel around).
Manual sorting: This allows players to Right-Click on each quest name in the Objectives Frame and determine in what order they should be placed.

Filtering
Toggle achievement tracking.
Toggle completed quest tracking.
Toggle tracking quest objectives in other zones.
Players can now Shift + Click on a quest objective or check the Track Quest box on the Map to track a quest in the Objectives Frame.

The quest tracker changes sound good overall. Most of them don’t really do anything for me since I always do my quests in my own order anyway and sorting doesn’t matter to me. For new people or those who just happen to be more obsessed with organisation than I am, I’d say it’s pretty good.

The one thing I’d like to see them do with the tracker is to let me move the flipping thing. I don’t care about widening it, sorting, minimizing, et cetera – I just want to be able to move it.

Technical
Frame Rate: A maximum capacity of 200 frames per second has been added.

Since my average fps is about 65 and I rarely see over 100 fps, this means nothing to me. I’m sure other people out there have hardier computers than I do so it might impact them.

Bug Fixes
When speaking to an NPC for which a player has 2 or more quests and not all of them are complete, the incomplete quests will now correctly show as a gray question marks in the dialog box. In addition, repeatable quests will be properly colored as blue exclamation points or question marks in the dialog box for NPCs with multiple quests available, or for which the player has multiple quests in progress or completed.

This bug has annoyed the crap out of me here lately, so I’m glad they’re getting it fixed. Some people say they’ve been dealing with it for months and others haven’t seen it at all. I had a few problems with it sometime last year and then it cleared up until a few months ago.

Like this:

One of the most frequently talked about subjects here of late in the World of Warcraft community is the new Looking for Group (or Looking for Dungeon) mechanic that was added in Patch 3.3. A lot of people love the new system and can’t see how they ever manged to level without it. Other people completely hate the system and refuse to use it ever again.

A lot of bloggers happen to be talking about it right now on their own blogs as well, but rather than reading their posts and then essentially responding them in my own post, I am going to simply post my own thoughts here and then any responses I have to them will be left in the form of comments on their blogs.

Initial Impressions
When I first tried out the new LFG I absolutely fell in love with it. Groups were fast, people were nice and cooperative, people who didn’t know the dungeons took advice and guidance from others, people didn’t mind spending a few minutes constantly clicking the icon to teleport into the dungeon after getting smacked around by the “Door Boss” repeatedly with messages of “Additional instances cannot be launched. Please try again.”

For the first week or so I didn’t have a single problem with any aspect of the new system. Sure, I might get thrown into a dungeon I didn’t really feel like running, but even then it wasn’t all that big of a deal. It was about the same as having a friend ask for help in a dungeon I didn’t care for; I might not have the most fun, but at least somebody was enjoying it.

And the loot! Holy cow, when you’re talking about level 15-25 characters the BoP items that drop from the satchel for doing random dungeons are actually Best In Slot gear if you get the right random enchant for your class/build.

Current Impressions
Now that I’ve had more time to play around with the system and have had a chance to do it not only on my low level characters, but also on my mid and high level characters I have a slightly different opinion.

Overall I still very much enjoy using it and any time I’m not caught up in the middle of doing something else you can pretty well count on me either sitting in queue waiting for the next one to pop or already running through one that recently popped for me.

However, I have had my fair share of horrible groups now too. At first they were just small things, like a low level tank that couldn’t hold threat on more than one mob at a time, or a healer that had only a dps spec but was the only one in the group that could heal, or a hunter who thought he was 60 levels higher than he actually was and then blamed the tank/heals for not saving him from his own stupidity.

As time went on though, things got progressively worse and progressively better at the same time. I have found some excellent groups that fit together perfectly and ones that actually stayed together to requeue for another random dungeon after the first. But I’ve also seen a group with a single bad player progress into a group almost entirely made of morons.

The first time I really doubted whether or not this new LFG system would hold out was when we ran into our first ninja looter. Cynwise and I found ourselves in a group with a mage who rolled need on absolutely everything that fell. After the third case of stupidity we kicked the guy from the group and replaced him almost right away. Not long after that though we found the hunter in the group decided that he had to roll Need on a shield because he was “going to use it when [he] level[ed] up”. We went on to other groups finding hunters and mages who thought they could tank, healers who didn’t see any reason in stocking up on drinks to restore their mana, trial accounts who “miss rolled” Need on boss drops and then couldn’t trade them to anyone else in the party, and so on. And I thought that was a bad day, until last night.

I started off last night by queuing up with my 19 twink mage in a few randoms and having a blast. If you care to read about the good times, then please refer to Blastoph: Adventures in SFK which you can find on my twink blog. After a few good runs with him I decided to switch over to my new Rogue Twink for a bit and go for some Deadmines and Wailing Caverns runs to finish off her gear (no luck) and finish leveling her up to 19 (got that one).

The first dungeon that came up was Wailing Caverns and the group had already cleared all but three bosses, and while we were there I got the Armor of the Fang (3rd best in slot) the Leggings of the Fang (1st) and the Gloves of the Fang (1st) so I was pretty happy just from that, and then my satchel for completing it held a belt with “of the Bandit” on it which just happens to be exactly what I was looking for. So it was very much a successful run. The one minor flaw was that Venomstrike dropped and a hunter with a crappy white bow rolled Need on it and I couldn’t bring myself to roll against him. My Throat Piercers are a bit better with their +2 Agility bonus, but Venomstrike is amazing for switching over and dealing damage when you need to.

The next run took me into Deadmines and we had a pretty good time in there. VC dropped the Blackened Defias Armor which is the second best armor for my Rogue. I rolled Need on it of course and watched as other people passed and offered grats, except for one. I noticed the Warrior tank hadn’t rolled yet, and just as I was about to say something I saw him click Need and he got it. So, no luck for me there.

The next queue took me back into Wailing Caverns, and that’s where things really went to crap. I filled in for a DPS that they kicked out of the group so I went to join them where they were. I saw as I was running to their location that most of the mobs on the top ring were still alive on both sides, but I just shrugged and assumed the tank wanted to save Lady Anacondra for the last. I also saw that the group was split up with the tank and hunter on the west side and the healer and warlock on the east. From that I assumed that the healer had gone to resurrect the warlock so I went for the tank.

When I got there I found the tank fighting mobs while the hunter yelled at him not to fight the serpents. I saw people dying so I jumped up there and started killing things off so the tank would live. The hunter yelled at me then too. To make a long story short, the hunter had been dragging the group to various places in the instance for the sole purpose of taming a serpent that he didn’t know where to find and had caused multiple wipes. Eventually he got his pet and the group formed up to actually run through the instance. I thought it particularly fitting that the hunter would fire a single shot at a mob, let the mob come to him, engage in melee combat, and then have his pet join in and never leave melee himself.

With that group and that moronic huntard as the group leader, we went through three tanks and four healers before I convinced everybody to just break the group and requeue. Luckily I managed to put the hunter on ignore and will never have to see his stupidity on my screen ever again. He was a perfect example of one person blackening the good reputation of the LFG system for several different people though.

I had such a horrible time in that last run through WC managing to kill only a single boss that I absolutely had enough with LFG for the night and had to go into WSG to kill people. I imagined every horde toon was that stupid dwarven hunter and went on a killing spree completely ignoring the whole concept of WSG all together. People had to die, and they had to die as soon as possible and in as large a quantity as possible. I didn’t do all that great in that run, but at least I got to vent some frustration.

Desired Improvements
The biggest issue I have with the new LFG system is the same as so many other people out there – I want to be able to queue for both Dungeons and PvP at the same time and take whichever one comes up first. I don’t mind getting kicked out of one queue if I accept an invite to the other, I just don’t want to sit there waiting for 30 minutes in one queue while the other is popping every 5 minutes.

Next up has to be more uses of Vote to Kick. When you’ve got a real bad player in the group you either have to deal with them or vote to kick them out of the group. But you can’t kick anyone else out after the second or third use of VtK. Instead you just get stuck with whoever you have there with you and your only option then is to deal with them or leave the party yourself. I don’t mind running with people that don’t know what they’re doing, are new to their spec, are new to the game, have never been to the dungeon before, or anything else so long as they are willing to accept advice on how to do things. If you suck and you refuse to let people help you not suck, then I make no hesitation in voting you out of the group. Come on Bliz, there are more than 3 people in each level bracket that suck, give me more chances to get rid of the morons.

And finally, I’d like for them to retool the Dungeon Deserter debuff (I can’t remember it’s actual name right off) . In fact, I’d like to see them get rid of the thing all together. I’ve only had it applied to me once and that was when the tank and one of the dps rushed right into combat before the healer had even zoned in, died, and then refused to run back and the healer hadn’t bothered to learn how to resurrect people yet. None of the votes to kick would pass for some reason so I had no choice but to leave them behind and I got flagged to not be able to queue again until the debuff went away. It was a whole new level of annoying.

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I must say that so far I absolutely love the new LFG tool. With a couple of minor exceptions I’ve had almost nothing but pure win with using it. Granted, I’ve only done lower level instances with it since I haven’t touched any of my high levels in quite some time, but it’s been great. My wife and several people I talk to on twitter have come across the darker side of it where you would have been better off condemning yourself to a known fail-pug, but as with anything else that’s done “randomly” you never know what you’re going to get out of it.

There are a few things that I want to talk about in particular concerning the LFG though, one which should be obvious but may not, and two which are presented as a question about the LFG quite a bit both on twitter and in game.

Recruit A Friend
Here’s the one that should be obvious to you. Using LFG in conjunction with RAF is a new level of awesome. My wife and her brother are doing RAF right now since they have similar sleep schedules where I do not, and they consistently gain 2-3 levels per dungeon run.

The biggest problem that people faced with RAF was outleveling their gear, where you found yourself in your 30s or 40s still wearing white gear that you picked up back in your starting zone because things just haven’t dropped for you. The next big problem was that people had a tendency to never bother learning how to play their class because it was just so darn easy to level.

The first problem there is easily addressed simply from the gear that drops inside the instances. Generally speaking, the best gear you’ll find for your level will come from instance. You can generally find better pieces that are rare world drops, and you’ll stumble across the occasional crafted item as well, but mostly the good gear will be in dungeons.

The second part is also somewhat lessened because it takes more effort to work together as a team against mostly elite mobs than it is to fight random mobs out in the world. This is especially true for tanks and healers as their roles at end game.

Can Alliance Queue RFC and Horde for Stocks?
The answer to both of these is yes. You can queue for any instance which you meet the level requirements for. So you can take your level 15 Gnomes into RFC, and you can take your level 20 Orcs into The Stockade.

You are teleported inside the instance, so you don’t have to bother running through an opposing faction’s city. Instances are not specific in which factions can use them, they just happen to be located in areas that are typically off limits to the opposing faction unless you’re willing to brave a run through very hostile territory.

The minimum level to queue for any instance is 15, so while you can enter RFC at level 8 and used to be able to queue for it at level 13, the minimum requirement for instance queues is 15. As long as your level is appropriate for the instance that you want to run then you can queue for it, no matter where it is or which faction supposedly guards the door.

Can I (Ab)Use LFG to Teleport!?!?
Yes, you can.

Now, most likely this is a glitch, so don’t get your hopes up too much just yet as it could be hot fixed at any time. I found in running RFC with my level 15 Mage that after a stupid paladin decided to agro as many mobs as he could and then bubble and laugh as we all died, I had to run back to the instance to get my body and then teleport back to Stormwind. After I died I didn’t want to listen to all the arguing and such so I just left the group. I thought at that point that I might be teleported back to SW the easy way and not have to bother running back to Org from Razor Hill, but no such luck.

When I got back to the instance I jumped inside, the loading screen came up and the progress bar went across the screen, and then I found myself alive and right outside of the instance with Neru Fireblade staring at me (luckily he didn’t agro me). I then used my hearthstone to get over to Dalaran and went about my business.

So if you want to abuse the LFG system to teleport then you have to join the group, get teleported to the instance, die inside the instance, release your spirit, leave the group, and then walk back to the entrance. At that point you can walk back outside and essentially teleport yourself to the zone that the instance is located inside of. Every other method I’ve tried so far has resulted in just being thrown back to wherever you were when you joined the group.

As I noted in the section above, you can only queue for instances that match your level. So don’t expect to have a group of 80s queue for RFC and then go pwn Thrall because it’s not going to happen.

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We have some further detail on which hair/skin colors will result in which forms for the druids in the upcoming patch. With the possible exception of the change to shaman totems, this is really the 3.2 change that I am most looking forward to. This change is completely full of win on an epic scale.

The source of this information is EpicWins.com. You can check the link there for information on where to find your nearest barbers to getting the job done.

Also, here are some links to the image charts you can use to determine which changes you need to make for the form that best suits your taste. Clicking the image will direct you back to EpicWins’s website.

[EDIT: Alright, EpicWins.com took down their pictures and deleted the post that they were in as well as everything else Warcraft related. As such, I’ve looked for some other pictures to use here instead. These I’m borrowing from MMO-Champion instead. The small images here I host in my photo-bucket account, but clicking them will link you to MMO Champ instead.]

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Alright, there is a lot of buzz going on right now about BoA Chest pieces coming out in 3.2. As such, I went and did a little research to find the information for you.

I see no reason to waste time with further chatter, so on with the details!

Does Bonus Exp From BoA Chests Stack With BoA Shoulders?
Yes.

It has been confirmed that the 10% experience bonuses offered by the new BoA Chests do stack with the BoA Shoulders.

There you have it, +20% experience when wearing these two pieces together. If you use the Recruit A Friend bonus, then you get 320% experience total. If you do not use RAF, but you do have Rested Experience saved up, then you get +120% experience.

But no, RAF and Rested do not stack themselves, so as of 3.2 you can either do 320% bonus exp with RAF plus both Heirloom pieces, or 120% if you have both pieces and are rested but are not using RAF.

[Update: Apparently the cost plan fell through or something got changed. The cost of all BoA Chests is currently 40 Emblems of Heroism. No information released yet on whether this was an error, intentional, plans to be changed, etc.]

Show Me The Goods!
Without further delay, here are the new Heirloom Chest pieces:

All of the new chest pieces will be found in Icecrown, and all of them will cost 60 Champion’s Seals. The link above will give you information on the seals themselves. [Update: People on the PTR say the cost is currently 40 rather than 60, and that the cost is in existing emblems rather than Champion Seals. Right now who knows what’s right? I will keep this updated as more information is presented to me.]

All of these chest pieces have Equip: Experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 10%. (Just thought I would throw that in there before the question was asked.)

Item Level Calculations
You can follow this link to find a calculator to help you find the stats at various levels. I do not know how accurate it is, but this is the best I could find.

The site gives you two drop down boxes and two buttons to click. The first drop down and its associated button will look at whatever item you have selected and tell you what type of item it is at various levels. For instance, if there is a Leather Chest that becomes Mail at level 40, then it will tell you at which levels those changes are made.

The second drop down and it’s associated button will look for all heirloom items for whatever level you selected from the drop down list.

The one issue I have with the site is that it will not let you look for a single item of a single level to get all of the stats from just that item. You either see only what type of armor it is and at which levels it changes its type, or you will see every heirloom item in the game for the level that you picked. It’s not a bad site, and it does work fairly well, it just has not been optimized at this time.

Sources
All of the information you see here was gathered from either WoWWiki or WoWHead.

The information found in the above links will remain updated as any further changes are made.

Psynister’s Thoughts
With so many patch notes, I’m not about to comment on every single one of them. However, I will talk about some of them below that have particularly caught my eye. Some of these changes I have already discussed and you can find by reading other articles I have posted over the last week or two.

I welcome you all to share your thoughts on the patch here as well. Feel free to comment on the specifics I point out here, or any other portion of the patch notes that I do not specifically cover.

The following points will be broken down into the same category they fall under within the patch notes.

For the individual class notes, there are many classes that I do not have enough experience playing to give an honest opinion on the changes, so I may skip over some of the specific classes. Nearly every class received at least some form of update though, so if you would like to get more details on those changes then I suggest you look at the patch notes yourself for the details.

General

The local Postal Service has grown tired of walking so far each day to collect mail and have decided to install a large number of new mailboxes to Stormwind, Undercity, Darnassus and Orgrimmar.

This is the only thing I want to point out in the General section that I have not already covered. The lack of mailboxes in many of the towns drives me crazy. Including “a large number of new mailboxes” in cities is an excellent change that I welcome with open arms. Tons of mailboxes and double bank and auction house locations are the one thing that I love about Silvermoon, and the lack thereof is the one thing I hate about everywhere else.

PvP

Players will now be awarded experience for completing objectives and actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds (honorable kills not included).

Players who do not wish to gain experience through PvP can visit Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar – both located near the Battlemasters in either city – and turn off all experience accumulation for the cost of 10 gold.

Disabling experience gains will prevent a player from gaining experience through any means available in the game.

Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.

Behsten and Slahtz can reinstate experience gains for players, for a 10 gold fee of course. Any experience that would’ve been accumulated if experience gains were not turned off cannot be recovered.

This change holds a lot of potential. Finally we see something from Blizzard aimed directly at twinks. While I’m not a hardcore twink, I do enjoy doing it. Giving players the ability to shut off their experience gain is excellent. You can now power level your twinks to the desired level, turn off their experience gains, and then go farm all the items and achievements you want without having to worry.

It’s also worth noting the 4th bullet there. If you turn off your experience gain, you will only participate in battlegrounds with other players who also have it turned off. So basically we have an opportunity have have twink vs twink and non-twink vs non-twink battlegrounds, so those of use who do like PvP but don’t like going up against players who live solely for that reason might actually stand a chance.

Now, there’s nothing stopping those twinks from turning their experience gain back on before a BG so they can face non-twinks instead, but they have to fork over 10g every time they want to make the change back and forth.

Races: General

Axe Specialization (Orc): The weapon bonus from this effect now applies to fist weapons in addition to axes.

Orcs are now able to apply their racial specialization to fist weapons. Shamans and Rogues are the only classes I ever see using fist weapons, and shamans far more than rogues. Not a big deal in my opinion, but it might bring a little more attention to the orcs.

Items: General

Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.

Mana Regeneration: All items that provide “X mana per five seconds” have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%

Increased bonuses to block value is a pretty big deal. It doesn’t double from the shield itself, nor from your Strength score, but all other equipment that grants you bonus Block will be increased. My Prot Paladin readers should love this one.
After posting this the thought occurred to me to actually look at some gear out there, and after having done that I’m really not entirely sure that this is going to be that big of a deal. There aren’t all that many options for increasing your Block, and the ones that do aren’t necessarily worth taking over other pieces that don’t. For now I’m going to jump over to being neutral on this one until I’ve had a chance to do some more looking. Extra block value is always good, but the change itself might not have all that much impact.

A lot of people threw fits about Mana Regeneration nerfs in the previous patch. I don’t know that this is going to solve any of those opened wounds, but at least we’re seeing a little bit of an increase in mana regen.

Classes: General

Silence, Strangulate, Silencing Shot, and Arcane Torrent: These abilities will also apply a 3 second interrupt effect against non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against creatures immune to silencing effects.

This change might be nothing, and it might be a life saver. Being able to use them as spell interrupts even against targets that are immune to silence can be a very welcome addition to your arsenal if you happen to play a race/class that has these abilities.

Death Knights

Due to significant talent changes, all death knight talents will be reset for players.

Death Knights are the only class mentioned as receiving all of their talent points refunded. If you have a build that you like and don’t want to forget it then I suggest you copy it down somewhere before the slates are wiped clean.

I make no claims towards being knowledgeable about Death Knights. Since I don’t know how significant the impact of these changes are going to be, I will leave it to others who know more about the subject to give details concerning them.

Mages

Invisibility: Can no longer be interrupted by a hostile action or damage done during the 3 second fade time, however an invisible mage can still be stunned or silenced.

This is the main update that interests me in the mage. There’s nothing worse than knowing that you have to flee in order to survive, popping invisibility, and then immediately finding it disrupted right in the middle from some random hit.

Paladins

Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.

Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.

Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.

Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target’s armor.

Paladins have the longest list of changes in this patch, and they really covered a lot of different points. All specs are going to feel the effects of this patch in one way or another.

Since I have recently devoted much of the blog to Protection Paladins I am going to discuss more of their points than others.

Blessing of Sanctuary not giving +10% Stamina is HUGE. This effect is in addition to the effect that it already has. Not only are you gaining more hit points, which is always good for a tank, but you are also increasing your spell power (assuming you’ve spent the talents points for it) which in turn will increase the amount of threat that you are able to generate.

I really don’t like the change to Exorcism. I do like that you will be able to use it on players again for when I do happen to need to PvP, but adding a cast time completely removes it as a viable option for being included in my tanking rotation or as a form of taunt to get stray mobs to turn their focus back to me. If there was anything I would be willing to do a little QQ over, it would be this. But, it’s not essential in any way, so overall I dislike it but really don’t care at the same time.

Lay on Hands provided a damage reduction buff rather than bonus armor makes this an even more effective tool for use in grinding and farming, as well as tanking in general.

Rogues

After much quiet contemplation, rogues now possess the ability to learn how to use one-handed axes.

Giving rogues more options for better weapons is sure to thrill the rogues out there. I’m not a huge fan of the class myself, but it seems like a good change to me and I’m sure most rogue players will be pleased with it.

Shamans

A customizable totem bar will now be available for shaman allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.

Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans having lower health than other classes.

The shaman is also receiving quite a few changes in this patch, so I would suggest you go take a look at the full notes if you happen to play one.

The new totem bar options are going to be a huge benefit to shamans everywhere. Being able to drop all four totems at once, on a single cooldown is huge. You have three customizable options for each spec, thus dual spec players can have up to 6, so you can get different groups of totems set up for different occasions.

The increase in base hit points for shamans is something that is definitely overdue. In articles read prior to full patch notes being released an interview revealed that nobody on the current team remembers why shamans had the lowest health pools in the game and that they would fix it in 3.2.

User Interface

Character name auto-completion for the chat frame, pop-ups, and mail interface can be enabled through an interface option in the Development settings.

Character names can now be colorized according to class in the chat frame through an interface option in the Development settings.

Casting bars under a target’s portrait will now indicate whether or not the cast can be interrupted.

Druids will now be able to see their mana bars when shape-shifted.

Item Comparisons: Holding the shift key while hovering over an item will now display the stat differences with the item currently equipped in the relevant slot.

Macros and scripts will no longer be able to target totems by name.

Quest creatures and objects will now show on the player’s world map.

The quest log is now double-paned for more easily viewing quest information.

Vendor prices will now be listed on items whether or not players are at a vendor.

I think the most profound impact form this patch is going to be right here in the user interface. Many of these changes are going to do away with the need for existing addons.

The first four items on the list probably hold the least impact, but there are existing mods that provide this same functionality.

Being able to see whether or not it is possible to interrupt a spell will save some players the hassle of wasting their interrupts, or perhaps it might prompt them to use them more frequently depending on the situation.

The Item Comparisons may very well take the place of the RatingsBuster addon as it performs nearly the exact functionality. The one benefit that RB still holds over this is that it does it for you automatically where the new option requires you to hold the Shift key in order to see the information.

Macros/Scripts not being able to target totems is going to make pvp against shamans a bit more of a struggle, which is actually a very good thing for those of us who like playing shamans. Macros that do this completely defeat one of the prime resources that shamans have to offer.

Quest Creatures/Objects showing up on maps, along with the changes to quests in the previous patch almost completely defeats the need for addons such as QuestHelper and Carbonite. Whether the new changes will work as well as these addons still remains to be seen, but there is potential now to see these addons sent to their graves.

Vendor prices listed on items will help you select your quest rewards if you wish only to sell the item instead of using or disenchanting it. I use an addon for this very purpose right now. I don’t remember the name of the one I use right off the top of my head, but it’s another addon being replaced by new in-game options.

Quests

The ravasaur trainer Mor’vek has returned to Un’Goro and will offer to help Horde players raise and train a Venomhide Ravasaur as a mount… if they can survive the creature’s deadly poison.

Since this is mentioned as a “return” I will assume that this is something that was available before I started playing the game as I do not remember ever hearing his name even mentioned. But the addition of another mount, and a horde-only one at that (For the Horde!) is good news in my book.

Professions
There is quite a list of profession changes. I only have a firm grasp on the workings of a few professions, and those happen to be the ones receiving the fewest number of updates.

I will leave the details of these changes for someone else to go over since I know that my own knowledge is lacking. From what I can tell, Jewelcrafting is going to receive the biggest change from this update.

Items

Non-Combat Pets: 8 new pets have been added (not including Argent Tournament rewards). Raptor Hatchlings can be found on rare and elite raptors throughout the game world. In addition, an Obsidian Raptor Hatchling can be purchased from Breanni in Dalaran.

For those pet lovers out there, and you all know who you are, there are now eight more for you to rush out and collect. While I do get a few pets on all of my characters, I’m not really into collecting things that have no real impact on the game itself, so I’m certainly not a pet collector myself.

Similar to professions, there are quite a few updates in the item category, so I suggest you take a look at the information at the actual patch notes if you are interested.

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[Update 07/28/2009: For more detailed information, please look at the new post on this subject: New BoA Chests: Stats and Costs. And to save many of you some time, YES they stack.]

In my daily checks around the various WoW blogs that I visit, I stumbled onto an article that mentioned yet another change coming soon in Patch 3.2 – BoA Chests.

The new BoA Chests are going to offer a +10% Experience bonus just like the BoA Shoulders already do. The big kicker with this though, is that these two pieces of gear are going to stack. So you now have an opportunity to get +20% experience from your equipment alone. Of course you still have the option of Recruit A Friend for +300% experience, or the ever-useful +100% bonus you get from being rested. Note: As Brajana pointed out in the comments below, Rested and RAF bonuses do not stack, so +320% will be the highest bonus you can obtain.

So far we don’t have any real detail on what the chest pieces are going to offer other than the bonus experience, but I would imagine they will provide similar benefits to the other heirloom items that already exist. From what I was able to find there has been no mention of prices for them either. I would assume that you will have the same options you do now with X Stonekeeper Shards and X Emblems to purchase them, but we have no details at this time.

Where Psynister Stands
I absolutely love this idea!

I have been putting off leveling my paladin because I am having so much fun with my other characters right now, notably Belgawrath (Orc Shaman 35). But, I might go ahead and get back to leveling Lexington and getting him up to 80 so that I can work on getting some of the heirloom gear for my characters. It will mean I have to leave my fun lower level toons alone for a while, but it will also mean getting to spend more time focusing on my leveling toons later on down the road.

While I love leveling up my characters, that doesn’t mean I don’t mind speeding up the process. The faster one character levels, the sooner I can move on to another one.

Where Others Stand
I know when the shoulders were introduced I heard several people pouring out the QQ that the Recruit A Friend benefit had been cheapened by them, so I’m sure there will be plenty of that to go around again.

On the flip side of that though, there are enough people who hate the process of leveling alts that they will probably rejoice at this idea almost as much as I do. With both BoA experience boosters and Rested status, you’ll be able to run around with +120% experience gained while you do it. If you happen to participate in RAF already, then you’re looking at 420% 320% experience. [Edit: no +100% rested when using RAF.]If that’s the case, then you might as well roll a new toon and just consider yourself level 60 because you will be there in no time at all.